[CliveW]

I recently spent around 6 weeks in Sri Lanka/southern India - and I'd wholeheartedly recommend it. Absolutely beautiful, incredibly friendly locals, very cheap. The food is also great (assuming you like south-east Asian cuisine, there isn't a lot of variety).

There's a very vibrant tech scene in Bangalore, although not much outside of that in my experience. Internet cafes aren't that commonplace (though not rare either), but 3G internet was pretty cheap (a few $s per GB), and available on a pay-as-you-go basis.